


Your Heart and it's Miles of Rain

by ScarTissue



Series: H- E- DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 16:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13930767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarTissue/pseuds/ScarTissue
Summary: If what you don’t know won’t kill you, you may just survive this year.





	Your Heart and it's Miles of Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Sup guys it's been 2 years and I'm ready to roll

_Early spring semester_

 

Derek was not taught that love is violence.

_Then why do you do this to yourself,_  something whispers, ruffling the fibers of his bones. _Why do you squeeze your heart until it splits like ripe fruit, why do you love a boy who has blood in his hair. You do this, you do._

His parents fought, sure- but across the board his childhood is as charmed as it reads. Derek grew up in a brownstone in the city, went to boarding school on the coast, summered in Europe. His parents have never divorced, his birth mother has never showed up unannounced- it had been a rockwellian experience.

(Going to an all male boarding school in his formative years didn’t exactly socialize him well- which, in hindsight, is probably why Will thinks he’s an asshole. His standard greeting at Andover was “Move it” or sometimes “Sup dickface” on the better days.  And this was all fine- on a hockey team, expected, and concerning if absent. He had to be like that, there were- he was- he was different. But Derek acted like that _all the time_ fall semester of freshman year. Shoves and names and barbs and it kept _amping_ up, because if he wasn't mad at him, he was ignoring him,  if his hands weren't grappling they would have never, ever _touched_. And Derek couldn’t handle that. He just couldn't.

_Spoiled rich boy,_ his cells seethe. _Just like them. Greedy fingered, gluttonous and sloe eyed. Always getting what you want. What have you ever worked for._

_I work twice as hard._ He tells himself, and faces east towards Mecca, and feels the sun on his dark face. _I work thrice._

 Derek’s poems, the poems that got him into Samwell on, quite frankly, a ridiculous scholarship and far too much blind-eye turned to his Andover gpa, used to be fairly diverse of subject- he enjoys _life_ , as much as you can when your brain is most easily akin to a car crash on one end and the horrified pedestrian on the other. Fight and Freeze at every moment, panic and stasis. _Makes for good metaphors, if nothing else._  
  
His stanzas used to trace faint footsteps through the side streets of New York he snuck down as a child, slipping between strangers legs, chasing the smell of fried plantains and watching teenagers spit fire outside bodegas _._ Heavy air in forests with trees as old as the dirt that held them, the smell of wet earth and spring, but also rot and how flowers grow out of the rib cages left in the leaves, _bathtubs stained red and empty dorm rooms and no calls_. Cities and oceans and summer and rain.

 But now, it’s- “It’s as if there was some Holocaust,” his professor said during open review, adjusting her cat eye glasses with one long finger. She was too dramatic for his tastes. “Derek, you were presenting a great variety of poetry, some of it particularly comic, at the beginning of the semester. Now your work is dominated with fiery, sometimes violent imagery- and a great undertone of mourning, longing. Would you care to elaborate?”  
  
He would not.  
  
“I guess,” he scratches his neck, adjusts his beanie. Stares at the pale yellow wall directly behind her face.“I just got caught in a new direction? College, new team, new place. Change can be violent.”

  
{}{}{}{}

_Late spring semester_

 

After the-first-party-back-from-winter-break-where-Derek-lost-what-was-left-of-his-damn-mind, or leningrad for short, he takes care not to make things tense. Or rather, a new kind of un-hockey/he’s just kind of a dick anyway related tense, because he’s chill, okay, stop asking, he’s _chill._ (No one’s asked in a while. He’s got this uncaring hipster shit locked down.)

 Things go on fine. They play, they lose, they mourn, they party like they’re never going to die.

 He only slips up once really, after the last game- Will was shaking like the locker his helmet had reverberated off, his eyes tight, bottom lip wobbling but he was trying _so hard_.

_"It’s… okay,”_ he murmured, mostly to himself, when he drew Will in; and oh, how he went so quietly, and fit like a high note at the crescendo. _“It’s gonna be okay.”_

 Derek put one gloved hand on his back and carefully held him while they both were in full gear, chests pressed together and Will quietly sobbing into his collarbone, because that made it better, right? This was his partner, this was about his team. They all wanted this for themselves, honestly, and for the seniors, and Will takes losses almost as hard as Jack-

 The thing Derek most clearly remembers from his tour of Samwell is the first time he saw Will’s face light up. _“Jack_ **_Zimmermann_ ** _will be there?” Will-Dex-Whatever clamped his mouth shut so fast Derek might’ve heard his jaw click. “I mean- that’s really cool. He’s a great player.” The boy rubbed the back of his neck and when his eyes finally peeked through his lashes, they had a quiet sheen, like gold lining a window pane in the sun, bars of light in an empty room, just to duck his head again while their guide rambled on. “No no,” Derek thought. “Don’t hide from me.”_

 If he doesn’t move Will when he falls asleep on Derek during the long bus ride home, and gently smooths his hair back from his eyes, face slack and soft and oh so pretty, _“So pretty,” he coos in his dreams to snowy necks mottled purple, “My pretty boy,”_ no one would blame him.

  _If what you don’t know won’t kill you, you may just survive this year._

 All of spring semester is wane and trying, the frayed ends of his hands knitting themselves together, his skin burning under late winter sun. He won’t touch, he tries not to goad, and all the  sudden, wonder of wonders- Will is his _friend._ They still fight and snark but Will walks with him to class unprompted and snaps him funny faces he makes with bananas on his pancakes and steals his beanie when they’re messing around. Will pulls him into celly hugs and saves him slices of pie and helps him with his bio homework. Will whispers to him on the Haus floor after the lights all over campus went out during that freak March blizzard, the shadows of snow passing quietly down his face, their sleeping bags only an inch from contact, that he’s glad they’re friends now.

 “I’m sorry I was such a dick all last year,” Will murmured into the night air. Derek could see the puffs of his breath. The glass in the windows had gotten so cold one of the panes had cracked that morning, and it was the dead of night now- Derek was shaking under two blankets and his coat. Will’s cheeks and nose had been a stinging red visible in the street light coming in from the gap in the curtains before the power cut out, but he was so still you almost couldn’t see his chest rise and fall. “I mean-” Derek could almost see the twist of Will’s mouth, because he knew Will was pulling the face he made when he didn’t want to say something, like he was sucking on a lemon. “I’m kind of a dick anyway. But I shouldn’t have been like that with you. You didn’t deserve that.”

 Derek had only been able to blink for a second before responding. He wasn’t entirely sure Will knew he could be just as mean and cagey. Derek swallowed his _Its cool I mean I did contribute to it because I was jealous you liked Jack. And other stuff._ “It’s alright,” he said, and reached out to pat Will’s cheek. They both had worked to get to this. Even if maybe he wasn't sure 'this' could survive too hard of a shake. “I’ll still think you’re a dick anyway.”

 “You’re an ass,” Will had laughed too loudly, and Chowder snorted half awake from the noise for a second on the couch. The spell was broken, and the Haus kept creaking, and the snow kept falling, and Will’s breathing evened out as he began to shiver in his sleep curled into a tight C on the hard floor. Everything was moving on and Derek’s heart wasn’t.

 He’s cool as a cucumber. He’s fine. Everything is gonna be fine- _everything is- everything-_

{}{}{}{}

_Late spring semester_

 

Everything falls the fuck apart.

 

{}{}{}{}

_Summer_

 Summer is-summer. It’s the only time Derek is really home for long anyway, so his parents run him ragged through everything there is to do in New York for families with Older Children, which is not as much as you think it would be. They keep trying to get him to invite someone over who lives in the city. “ _Malik, what about, oh damn that one with the-” “Mustache? He’s moving to Boston right now, Ammi. It’s only June.” “I know, baby. But what about-”_

 He finally cracks and says he’s going to the beach with some of his senior classmates, and ends up driving upstate and laying in his uncle’s yard (Amir’s _gallivanting off with some young girl with no business in- anyway, honey, he won’t be back until September at least)_ all afternoon, willing the grass to be as soft as Samwell’s so he can just pretend for a second. This is usually the part where he starts imagining sleepy breaths on his neck and warm weight against his chest, but everything is too wrong, too bright and hot, too quiet in the still summer afternoon to ever pass as a college campus, so he waters the plants and leaves a note explaining the frozen pizza box and missing copy of _Their Eyes Were Watching God._

 Derek doesn’t know how to explain why he ends up out there anyway, though. It would be too long, too guilty of a conversation that Derek is sure he can handle. _I love my moms but New York isn’t my home. I hated Andover but can’t forget it. I’m only comfortable around other people my age, I can’t sleep in the city, I want to take summer classes next year but I feel like it would break Ammi’s heart. My heart is breaking. My heart was never quite functioning to begin with._

 He ends up tramping out there every two weeks, actually. Amir is barely ten years older than Derek, he wouldn’t mind- he actually had suggested it a few summers ago, “If only to keep the ferns alive- don’t act like you like those boys, Malik. Your Ammi, she meant well, she wanted you to have everything we could give you. But- I don’t even know. But. Here’s your keys. I love you.”

 He still texts and snaps Chowder and Will all summer, watching Maine and California pass through his phone screen, the group chat reaching Georgia, Canada, Boston, wherever in bum-fuck upstate Holster knocks around. It feels more intimate, in some ways, than the last time they all hung out, trying not to say goodbye too loudly. Derek finds Chowder’s goofy smile when Farmer drives out to surprise him in his inbox, Will’s eyes rolling in the face of his dark haired brother, and then the younger sister he looks more like. All their sharp golden shades just the same. Window to the soul and all that.

 It’s close, very close honestly. Just not close enough.

  _Come see me_ , he wants to send, a little recklessly _. Ditch work and kiss me in the sun like we both can afford too. I promise I’ll love you afterwards. I promise I won’t leave._

Summer is long and boring and starts a slow, scraping sadness at his insides. No one from Andover has called since last August. Derek is still so relieved.

 

{}{}{}{}

 

_Early fall semester_

 

Derek loves almost everything about going back to Samwell. No really, he does. Almost everything.

 “Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...”  
  
“Greg.”  
  
“ _Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh…”_

 “Greg, I see you’ve found last year’s stash. Please say hello to my mothers. Again.”

 “My goodness you are just _adorable!_ Honey come take a picture of this young man, look at those dimples oh my - Malik, could you just lift him up there- _Alma! Where did you put the camera I swear-” “I have it I have it- smiles, you little shits-” “_ **_Alma-_ ** _” “Yes, my love?”_

 Greg wraps around Derek in what must be the most loving, drug gentled chokehold ever recorded, and plants a low, sloppy kiss on his jaw that must’ve been meant for his cheek as his mom wanders out of the room. The drool is profuse.

 “Missed you _sooooooooooooooo much.”_

 “Greg.”

 " _Alma you let that fly out of your mouth one more time-” “Ooooo you gonna make me_ **_drive_ ** _-” “... Alma.” “Uh-” “_ **_Alma.”_ ** _“Yes, my beloved, my one flower, my ever forgiving wife-”_

“Am I your flower, bro?”

“Where are your pants?”

“Am I though. Am I.”

“Greg. Please.”

 

{}{}{}{}

 

_Early fall semester_

 

“Best. Semester. Ever. Starting now!”

 “It’s only your third semester, C,” Will says from behind a box, carefully maneuvering past Chowder’s new dorm’s door, crammed with suitcases and boxes on the floor and duffel bags and all their jackets piled on the unclothed bed, because central Mass. was always cold as fuck the minute September started. “Don’t you want to save the best for later?”

 “Dex,” Chowder says, as seriously as he has ever managed off the ice. Derek had the feeling Chowder had been saying this all morning, but he had gotten in the night before and just walked in after oversleeping Chowder and Will’s arrival by like two hours, so he could only assume. “I won’t have a single room _and_ bathroom again until I’m probably thirty. This is as good as it gets.”

 Will drops his last haul from the car on the floor, and the tile offers a full layer of dust for the sunlight to catch. Chowder scrunches up his face like he’s about to sneeze. “Fair enough. I-”  
  
_“Chriiis!” We’re headed back to the c-”_

 Chowder’s mom starts yelling at him to get down to the car to say goodbye and Will cuts off mid-sentence while he jogs to the stairwell, and Derek is left in the doorway looking at him, lit up in front of the dust motes and the fall sun. Will is thinner than he had been last spring.  
  
“Hey,” Will says suddenly, the corner of his mouth lifting in that smile he does, half way there, not quite a quirk. It looks wider than it usually does. Will looks… really happy, actually. “Took you long enough to get here. It’s good to see you.”

Derek smiles back. What else could he do? He can feel the summer falling off him like so much useless baggage. He’s finally back where he belongs. And everyone was waiting for him.

 “It’s good to see you too.”


End file.
